Freedom of Choice: Do We Actually Have It?

I often feel like people are still under this illusion that everybody has freedom of choice, and that the choices that we make really impact our lives.

But that notion is a farce. Sometimes we don’t have much of a choice at all.

Shattering the Illusion

The society that we live in currently tells us that if we work hard enough, pull up our bootstraps and put our noses to the grindstone, we can create any life we want.

The fact of the matter is that you can work really hard all your life and still end up poor, hungry, homeless and without community. 

The world is not a level playing field, and it’s easy to see that some folks are much more privileged than others. It’s a lot easier to move through life when you aren’t worried about where you’re going to sleep every night.

Sometimes, the only choice we have is THE ONLY CHOICE we have. And sometimes all the choices we have are not ones that we want to make. 

The Choices I Make

I’ve started to give myself more grace recently because there are times when making a choice is going to be rough, gross and ugly, but we have to do it anyway. There’s also going to be times when it’s beautiful, freeing and an opportunity for connection.

I made a discovery about myself that I was pansexual in my early twenties. I had just left an oppressive marriage and coming out felt dngerous. The alternative was to stay in the closet and continue to pretend I was straight, which was slowly killing me. Not much of a choice.. I knew that gender and a person’s genitals were the least important factor of my attraction. I’m attracted to energy, not what’s in someone’s pants.

So, when I decided to further my education about gender and learned about the non-binary label, I faced another non-choice. Coming out as non-binary and pansexual didn’t change anything about me. The only difference is that I have the language and meaning to express myself and how I’d always felt, which gives me power over my queerness. It releases me from struggling to fit into a cisgendered, heteronormative life. I could choose not to share these parts of myself, but I want young folks today to see that you can be out and survive; be your most authentic self and thrive. 

I want to age into the old queer who is always following the beat of my heart over the footsteps of the popular.

Staying in the closet is not what I want to do, but every now and then, I need to pick my safety over my authenticity. In those moments, I don’t have the freedom to choose to just be myself, and that’s painful.

I wonder if I ever really fool anyone… I'm flamboyant. I'm a fucking super star. My art is so damn queer. Am I ever really in the closet? Is that even a choice I can make? Who am I trying to deceive?

Truly, this goes beyond being non-binary or pansexual or disabled. It’s about how I can live, work and play. I don’t get to ignore these things about myself, and that plays a part in the choices I make every day.

It’s easy for us to look through a peephole into someone’s life and assume that they could have made better choices. But the work comes in realizing that’s not always true. 

If we move through the world with compassion and offer support where we can, it might give others a little bit more freedom to choose the life they want for themselves. When we’re empathetic to our fellow beings, we can all choose a little bit more happiness.